Tools Tips: How to fix the xcrun invalid active developer path error in macOS

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I recently ran into this problem, after updating my macOS version to Catalina.

Trying to update Hugo via Homebrew triggered this error:

xcrun: error: invalid active developer path (/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools), missing xcrun at: /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/xcrun

The command was successfully completed, but we don’t want errors, right?

Here’s what I did to solve it.

In the terminal, I ran:

xcode-select --install

This triggered a dialog box in macOS:

After clicking Install and accepting the terms, the download started:

After the installation finished:

I closed the terminal window and opened a new one.

Problem solved.

Lessons in this unit:

0: Introduction
1: How to fix the ffmpeg not found error with youtube-dl
2: How to set up hot reload on Electron
3: How to disable 1Password in an input field
4: How to recover lost data from an SD card
5: Pasting code snippets in Discord
6: Remove EXIF data from images
7: Searching for the perfect e-ink writing device
8: Syntax highlight any block on a Web Page
9: What is a webhook?
10: What's the best platform to deploy your projects?
11: Scraping with Puppeteer
12: Why use a preview version of a browser?
13: A practical guide to Homebrew
14: ▶︎ How to fix the xcrun invalid active developer path error in macOS